Reflections On A Flight Home From Philadelphia

After a connection in Detroit, I’m finally on my way home. I don’t know about you, but I am deeply hungry to be with the three people I love most, and to pull my other people close. And, as with years past, I’m also very much not ready to reckon with the fact that there are people I love that chose to align themselves with the moral rot offered by MAGA.

But as my adopted-in-adulthood grandfather (a distant relative of my wife’s) in Norway says in the hard moments—such as when we wept with him by the graveside of his wife this summer—"that’s the way it is.” His is not the stereotypical Scandinavian stiff upper lip, or the sort of causal “it is what it is” – but something like the Gandalf quote I shared last night. We do not choose the times we live through, however much we wish we could.

The hot takes are coming hard and fast, I’d suggest ignoring them unless they help you cope for a bit. Most of it is amateurish, Monday-morning quarterbacking, and a lot of Rorschach like reads of how the the one thing Democrats did wrong was not embrace (whatever the person’s favorite thing is).

The truth is, Harris made up almost all of massive deficit on the economy in just a few months, and fell short only a couple points on the matter, roughly equivalent to her loss margin in the swing states. In places where the campaign was active (swing states), she massively outperformed compared to everywhere else—which means the campaigning was effective.

But the fact that the shift was so strong, and so strong everywhere, suggests some larger forces at work. And it is very much worth noting that incumbent governments—right and left—are falling and facing serious electoral setbacks everywhere. This is probably due to inflation and other Covid-related malaise. Given near-total electoral shift nationally, it seems obvious to me that this headwind was real, and serious, and too much to overcome for any candidate.

And it’s also worth remembering the larger megatrend involving the rejection of elites and institutions that have failed to deliver and the rise of unhinged, authoritarian populism across the globe. This has mostly been accompanied by the rejection of cultural change and immigrant populations, which has meant most of the unhinged stuff has been right wing. These are ugly, hard, global forces we have to contend with.

None of this means we shouldn’t take a good look in the mirror. We must. And we will. But it is worth putting context on this horrible outcome.

I did appreciate the Pod Bros today if you want to quickly review some of the hot takes, likely questions that will arise, and when we’ll have the kind of actual information we need to do a proper reflection.

And if you need to remember that there are people with stiff spines that will help us find our ways to stand strong, look no farther than one of my own favorite iron ladies.